Bridging the electronic divide: patient and provider perspectives on e-mail communication in primary care (original) (raw)

The American journal of managed care, 2002

Abstract

To determine e-mail utilization patterns and attitudes toward e-mail use among primary care physicians and their ambulatory outpatient clinic patients. Cross-sectional baseline survey. Participants included 476 consecutive outpatient clinic patients, 126 general medical and family practice physicians, and 16 clinical and office staff from 2 large primary care centers within an academic teaching system. They completed a survey about e-mail usage patterns and their attitudes toward using e-mail for patient-provider communication. More than half of patients (52.1%) were self-defined e-mail users, yet only 10.5% of those users had ever used e-mail to communicate with their doctors. Seventy percent of all patients said they would be willing to use e-mail to communicate with their doctors. Overall, patients were concerned about logistics, such as whether the message would get to the right person and how long it would take to get a response. Physicians and staff were more optimistic than p...

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